Very simple unix question

he's talking rubbish...

MacOSX is running UNIX it's running and using a BSD kernel and will run any standard UNIX command that he'd like to suggest!!

Cheers,
--Zed

 

Ask him if he thinks Linux is real UNIX? It's not. Like darwin (Mac OS X's UNIX-like core), it's UNIX-like.

I thought it was the NeXT kernel, not a BSD kernel?

Anyway.. go ahead and print this put for him:

http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html#08

Trace the path of darwin in highlighter.

 

Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, BSD, MacOSX - Are all versions of UNIX.

--Zed

 

So he's still running BSD from 1978? Remind him it's 2005.

 

The Unix name is actually trademarked, and for this reason, you will in general not see Linux of FreeBSD or their variants refer to themselves as Unix OSes. The etiology of the MacOS is like this:

BSD -> FreeBSD -> Mach kernel -> NeXTStep -> MacOS X.

And so, AFAIK, MacOS is not officially a Unix operating system. Apple uses the term "Unix-based."

I'm not 100% sure about this, though. It looks like their version of X11, OTOH, *is* licensed, since they call it X11 and not something else, such as Linux does with XFree86....

But functionally, there are not a lot of meaningful distinctions between a BSD-type Unix and MacOS. There aren't really many things that Unix has in terms of management software etc, that are not available in OS X. And so people colloquiually refer to them as Unix OSes....

 

what does he think REAL UNIX is?

--Zed

 

Probably FreeBSD. Which itself isn't actually Unix.

For any useful definition of "Unix," OS X is a crunchy Unix center surrounded by a delicious candy interface.

 

now that's a quote I like!!

I would tell your IT person that the Mac is running Unix and will probably make his day if he just gave it a chance..I spend well over 95% of my working day with Unix and I really couldn't do half the thing I do with out my Mac, Windows would just not stand a chance.

---Zed

 

What a great pic... thanks.
Will show to my fellow programmers tomorrow.